Blog series on Quilt as You Go techniques

Quilting these 16" blocks was much easier
to tackle  one by one than the much 
larger quilt they became part of.

These lovely quiet, often slow, free days between Christmas and New Year are a good time to think about what we might do next as quilters - more of what we already know and love, or maybe take a leap into something new.

Before you start your next quilt (or at least before you join all those blocks together), would you find it easier to quilt it yourself if you mastered a 'quilt as you go' technique or two?

Anne Deister, who writes the Spingleaf Studios blog has written a generous series of posts on various quilt-as-you-go techniques that might get you started. The series covers 5 ways of piecing and quilting block-by-block, and a summary of the five.

She says:

... These posts are not QAYG tutorials but they do include links to the tutorials I used. 

I know I certainly learned a lot from my explorations and will definitely be using QAYG for future projects. 

My hope is that you will be inspired to give QAYG a try.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

' It doesn’t all have to be done today. Or tomorrow ...'

We make a lot of quilts for community groups and charities, particularly over the last ten years when we have held regular sewing days, collected a community fabric stash, and concentrated on a small list of recipients whose needs we know. What works for us is that we don't have a quota of quilts we are obliged to meet, we make what we can in the time available, from the resources we have, in designs that we choose.  From time to time, opportunities arise that were unanticipated, and we take a detour. The last thing we want to do it to wear out our willingness and ability to sew for others as well as ourselves.

Amy Smart's blog post is a reminder to pace ourselves as quilters and volunteers:

... about sewing for charity and giving, including some lessons I’m learning about making time for giving and serving. So here are some thoughts on how to make the most of your sewing and giving for charity and how pace yourself in order to help the most people effectively. (Including yourself.) ...  Sew Goodness – thoughts on charitable sewing, Amy Smart, Diary of a Quilter, 2018

'Colours of the Year' 2019

Do these promotions influence your use of colour, or purchases?

There are at least two 'Colours of the Year' promotions currently running campaigns on social media.

The Kona Colour of the Year is the more narrowly focused, promoting Robert Kaufman Fabric's Kona Cotton Solids, via a limited edition colour that will be available for one year only, from January.

The 2019 Kona Cotton Colour of the year is 'Splash'. Four free quilt patterns commissioned from well known designers, using 'Splash' are available here.

It will play very nicely with the Pantone Colour of the Year for 2019, 'Living Coral'.  The Pantone Colour of the Year is influential across a very wide range of products, including textiles.

Tutor expo at Embroiderer's Guild of NSW until 28 January 2019

Gallery 76 will be closed on Public Holidays and a few other days, but there are several opening days during the holiday period for this exhibition, and then normal gallery hours until the end of January ...

Embroiderer's Guild of NSW
Check the website for opening times over the
Christmas - New Year period

For information about other quilt and textile-related events, visit our '2019 events' page.

Exhibitions online

If you would like to spend a little time just looking at quilts online in the midst of your Christmas and holiday preparations, here are a couple of Australian online exhibitions worth a visit:

Quilt NSW 2018 Challenge: Running Away with the Amish

Ozquilt Network: Australia Wide Six

Both collections are also featured in touring programs.

2018 end-of-year challenge

Last Monday saw a gathering of friends, food, punch and a challenge at our Christmas lunch to mark the end of our quilting year. Thanks to Elsa, Pat, Marilyn and Janice who organised and set-up. The evening group met for a Christmas dinner on Tuesday evening - some of us  managed to get to both. We will take a break from regular meetings over the early weeks of summer, and reconvene in mid-January.

Our challenge was to make a favourite block, or to try something you have wanting to make without necessarily committing to making a whole quilt.  We were free to use the fabric of our choice, and to make any sized block. There is a plan for the blocks, but that is for another post, later ...

Viewer's Choice was won by Jill's Swirly Twirly
Dresden block, designed by Orchid Owl Quilts.

Nerida won a lucky draw prize for ticket no. 12

Helen's block

Elaine G's block - Honey Bee

Robin W's block - Dutchman's Puzzle

Robin B's block

Jan's block

Marilyn O's block

Janice's block

Jo-Ann's block

Robyn L's block

Roslyn's block - packaged up

Val's block

Daphne's block

Last weekly show and tell for 2018!

One last show and tell before we take our summer break. The sewing won't stop all together, we just won't see it until mid-January.

The spots and stripes log cabin blocks came as a
donation for our community quilts collection, and were
cleverly put together by Marg K. Lynette has quilted
 and bound it - team effort. The green sashing (it too
has a spot - a darker green pin-dot) is a very effective
foil to the business of the blocks.

Jan's gorgeous large quilt is made with a
variety beautiful soft pastels

Janice has finished her new son-in-law's
personalised Christmas stocking just in time
- the traditional cross stitch is embellished
with beads.

We were so pleased to welcome Julie back after a
long illness. As soon as she was well enough,
she filled some of the long hospital hours with stitching
precut hexagons together, and has made a
substantial start on a new quilt.

Julie also brought along a community quilt she had
finished before her sudden illness - she persisted with
the freehand, no-rulers curves she had seen others make,
but admits that freehand cutting is not really her 'thing',
so she'll be polishing up her rulers for her next quilt.

This pretty hexie pouch is very Nerida!

A lucky little boy will be in possession of his
dinosaur quilt made by great-aunt Lyn very soon.
The piecing pattern is very clever. Lyn found a perfect
bright dinosaur print for the backing - and yes, a photo
of that too would have been a good idea!

Roslyn  is making two of these quilts well in
advance of her new twin daughters moving into
their big beds, which will be before they know it.

Weekly show and tell

Sue C's recent big tidy up of her sewing room has revealed
lot of lovely random fabrics for the 1 1/2" hexies she's making
into a quilt for her granddaughter.

Marilyn O bought a SewMiriam bag pattern last week and is
 already on her second one, because she knows her friend
would like one too! Beautiful fabrics.

Robyn L's original design embroidery on linen.

If you receive one of these table runners as a gift, the giver might
have been in one of Linda's classes - they are stitching up a storm.
When asked where she found the fabrics in her sample, Linda
loves to say she 'picked them up in London', as you do.

The last of Jill's list of nine wips to be finished in 2018 - started
in April 2016, finished last week. Slightly adapted from a quilt
posted on Bits and Bobbins, with Trish Royal's permission.

Blue hexagon flowers are still landing in the
blue hexagon box, for the Quilt NSW/Arterie at
Lifehouse project. We saw some of ours online
last week, making it into the next level of
construction. These will be sent off soon.

2019 events

Dates and details for 2019 quilting events are being released as 2018 draws to a close, so our 'Events' page has been relabelled as 2019 Events, to be added to throughout the year. These major events have already been announced. There is a permanent link to this page just under the banner.

Thursday 14 - Saturday 16 February 2019
Hall 5, Exhibition Centre, ICC, Darling Harbour
Hosted by IntoCraft Event page on Facebook

Australasian Quilt Convention

11 - 14 April 2019

Melbourne

Sydney Quilt Show

and

Craft and Quilt Fair Sydney

Wednesday 19 - Sunday 23 June 2019

Darling Harbour

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Last community sewing day for 2018

 Another year of community sewing days has come to an end, and a very productive year it has been. The final count is not yet in, but more than 50 quilts have been made for our community collection. We felt we were a bit slow to get sewing on this last day, but talking and planning for current and future projects are important parts of the process, as is that first coffee.  In march next year we will have been holding ten monthly sewing days a year for ten years, an initiative from Lynette who was our Convenor at the time. We might even talk her into a photo for the anniversary ... 

Meanwhile, we did get quite a bit of sewing done - these are just the ones that we took photos of:

Dawn had finished a top started at the jelly roll sewing day,
auditioned backing fabric and pin basted it.

Yvette made serious sashing and corner stones (tiny nine patches)
to join together the second set of donated barn blocks.
The blocks are pieced from beautiful Denyse Schmidt fabrics.

Daphne has renovated a donated mystery quilt top that the
original maker did not like (the other half has already been done
by Susan), into a lap sized quilt that she and Dawn pin basted.

Elaine W was stitching together gorgeous blocks made from
her own and community stash fabrics

Miriam hand sewed labels onto finished quilts.

Jill began sewing a stack of 5" squares from the
community stash ...

... into disappearing nine patch pieces ...

... that will become double disappearing nine patch blocks,
using the tutorial on A Few Scraps blog here.

AQC 2019: a textile art challenge

Here is another opportunity to enter a challenge for the Australasian Quilt Convention in April 2019 ...

'We invite you to depict yourself, in textiles ...' see how you can enter, how flexible the criteria are, and the timeline, on the AQC website, here.

Weekly show and tell

Yvette made this quilt several years ago, for her husband ...

... and he is happy that the fabrics are not too 'girly'. It was quilted
by someone else, long before Yvette had her long-arm machine.

Daphne foundation pieced this blocks from her impressive
stash of bright scraps and a little black and white. The setting
triangles are a fine purple and white stripe, also from the stash.

It's never too early to start stocking the craft stall for our
2020 Quilt Show - Dawn is making scissors keepers that
can also be used to keep a few pins at hand.

Elaine B has used triangles, squares and pentagons 
to construct a patchwork ball

Elaine brought her machine appliquéd and embroidered
fantasy quilt top in for some expert embroidery advice.
It’s coming along very nicely!

'Pickled Sharks'  is a variation on Chris Jurd's 'Pickled Fish' 
quilt, made by Jill at her son's request. The palette is drawn 
from NRL team colours.

Quilted by Yvette (Keepsake Quilts), the design is 
called 'Sails', but they could be fins ... the backing 
fabric is a Carolyn Friedlander wideback.